A Step Back In Time
by Mako Blue
Summary: Tifa gets sent back in time to a rainy day. AU, in-game.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 7.

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"_I really like Cloud." _

_"Really?"_

_"He reminds me a little of my ex-boyfriend."_

_"What happened to him?"_

_"He went off on a mission five years ago, and I haven't seen him since."_

_"Is he … dead?" _

_"I'm not sure. I thought I felt him enter the Lifestream, but he's not there now. There's been no news of him, so I've moved on."_

_"…"_

_"How about you, Tifa? Don't you like Cloud?"_

_"Cloud and I are childhood friends, nothing more…"_

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In Kalm, she had finally gotten the story out of Cloud, what he had been up to since the time he left Nibelheim. Instead of clarifying things however, Cloud had thoroughly confused her with his version of events in Nibelheim. He hadn't been there, but he knew things that only an eyewitness like her would know and even a few more that she didn't. She couldn't really remember much from that night, other than raging fires and Sephiroth, but she had been pretty certain that Cloud hadn't been there.

Cloud. He was such a stranger now. Of course, it had been 7 years since she last saw him and people were bound to change. He was a piece of her past with Nibelheim, her hometown and the only person she knew from that town who was in the world of the living still. He was the only one who remembered the Nibelheim winters, the old water tower, the muggy summer nights. Somehow, that was inexplicably precious to her.

She thought she had liked Cloud, had been sure that Cloud liked her back, a little. But she could see that he loved Aerith. Loved her (how could you not?). Even _she _loved her. She was so kind, so sweet, so fearless. Especially in matters of the heart. Tifa admired Aerith for her guts. It's was not like Tifa had ever backed down from a fight but for some reason when it came to expressing her feelings to Cloud, she turned and ran every time. Aerith had that inch of courage to really make things clear and even if she didn't, Cloud would have fallen in love with her anyway. She's just that sort of person that you liked to be around with.

She saw how he interacted with Aerith, the girl's smile managing to bring out an answering echo of Cloud's own.

They had split up into two groups, Cloud choosing Aerith and Tifa in his party, and Barret and Red XIII going off on their own to meet them although how they were going to cross the marshes themselves with the Midgar Zolom was a mystery. Tifa supposed that Red XIII could keep up with a chocobo through the marshes. She really couldn't see him riding one behind Barret. In the meantime, they had to catch their own chocobo and with the Chocobo Lure material glinting in her bracelet, they had come across one with its accompanying group of monsters. They were attempting to capture the bird by killing off the monsters before it finished eating the Greens but as Tifa lunged forward to deal her devastating kicks and punches she accidentally brushed against the flank of the chocobo. The bird warked angrily and with lightning speed launched a volley of pecks at Tifa. Tifa could only block the blows with her arms, wincing in pain as the strong beak jabbed at her. She looked up to see the bird sprinting away into the distance just as Cloud finished off the last monster and sighed. "I thought the Chocobo Lure Materia was supposed to make me lucky!" She fumed.

"Are you alright, Teef?" Cloud came over to her. Tifa looked up from her examination of the damage and grimaced. "Bruises mostly. But the stupid bird cracked the "Time" materia. And I was so close to levelling it up too." Cloud leaned forward to assess the damage. Sure enough, there was a crack running through the clear green materia, almost splitting it into two.

"Damn. That must've been a really hard blow. Think we'll have to junk it."

"There's no way we can save it?"

"Nah. Damaged materia can't be fixed. It behaves erratically or not at all and it might even blow up on you." Cloud shrugged. "It's just not worth it."

Tifa contemplated the green sphere in the materia slot of her Mithril Knuckle. It made sense, to get rid of something that was useless. It was useless to hold onto to something just because it hadn't been able to achieve its potential, like giving up on broken dreams. The green crystal was already losing its glow. She shifted her gaze up to Cloud's back as he walked back to Aerith, the last Ancient, and for a moment, felt a little bit of something like despair. She liked Cloud, especially since she had found him at the train station a year ago. She had been confused about his story and her feelings and had opted to wait to try and make sense of them. However, Aerith had appeared with her green eyes, sweet face and gentle, cheerful voice and Cloud seemed sweet on her and she, Tifa, was too late.

Maybe I ought to take up his advice on more than one level; she mused, and abandon her crush on Cloud. Aerith was a nice person and they did look good together. She half wished Cloud hadn't chosen her to be part of his group. She felt like such a third wheel.

She stretched upwards to the sky, straightening out the kinks in her back. Turning around, her call for them to wait up turned into a yell, "Watch out! Behind you!"

Three Mus had snuck up behind Cloud and Aerith and while the little ground rodents didn't usually do much damage, they had a very sneaky attack called L4 Suicide. Aerith had been hit by it during a couple of encounters before and had a very bad reaction to it and was that the fuse snaking out towards Aerith? Cloud and Aerith were just turning around at the sound of her voice and Cloud was already reacting to the threat. Tifa knew that she couldn't cover the distance in time; she'd have to cast a spell, even though she wasn't very good at controlling the spells yet. . .

Tifa's magic flowed to the materia in her gloves as she summoned All-Bolt, putting all her power behind that elementary spell. That surge in power caused the cracked Time materia to glow brightly as well.

The lightning bolt killed all three Mus.

And, with a small pop and a sudden displacement of air, Tifa Lockheart disappeared right before Cloud's and Aerith's horrified eyes.

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A/N : This is something I wrote last year (checks date), June 2008, after playing the original FF7 and CC. Finally, sharing to FF . net.

Hope you enjoy it.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 7.

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Tifa blinked, stunned as the she stood in the rain. When did it start raining? And where were Cloud and Aerith? She looked around her to get her bearings. She was still at the foot of the Midgar Mountains, still in sight of Midgar in fact; her location had not changed. What had changed was the weather and the fact that she was all alone.

"What happened?" she murmured, panicked, head snapping around wildly. "Cloud! Aerith! Where are you guys?"

No reply.

The sound of rain was broken by a thunk on the wet grass. She bent down to pick up both halves of the Time materia that had fallen out of her glove. She remembered Cloud explaining, "…Damaged materia can't be fixed. It behaves erratically or not at all and it might even blow up on you…"

Tifa frowned. Her first thought was that the Time materia had vaporised Cloud and Aerith but rejected the idea out of hand. It didn't explain the rain. She had the sinking feeling in her stomach that however erratically the Time materia had behaved, it was the reason she was in this predicament now.

Tifa knew that her inaction was due to shock at finding herself in this totally unexpected situation and tried to pull herself together. She needed to get back to her friends. She pulled out her PHS and tried to contact Cloud but could not get an answer, only static. She was looking at the PHS in frustration when she heard Cloud scream.

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Tifa swore as she slipped _again_ on the wet clay as she struggled up the steep trail to where Cloud's scream had originated. What was Cloud doing in the mountains? Were they looking for her there? Her boots bit and scrabbled for purchase as she pushed herself forward. Cloud's voice had been so anguished. . .

As Tifa finally reached a more level grade, the rain stopped and the sun began to shine. Tifa didn't notice all this, however as her carmine eyes took in what appeared to be a battlefield and with the solitary black-clad figure lying in a pool of blood *_so much blood!*_ next to the cliff's edge.

_Cloud!_ Her body was moving forward even before her mind shrieked his name. _Oh Gaia, Shinra must have caught them! They killed him and taken Aerith! _

The relief and confusion she felt when she saw that the person had black hair, instead of the familiar blonde hair was intense. He was taller and had the same black uniform as Cloud…

_I know this person. He was at Nibelheim with Sephiroth five years ago. His name was _

"Zack!" she cried aloud, remembering.

This Zack was very different from the confident, earnest SOLDIER that she remembered. He was riddled with more bullet holes than she could count, his SOLDIER uniform shredded and shiny with that particular texture that meant it was soaked through with something more than rainwater. For some reason though, his face had a peaceful smile. She touched his face gently and pulled back with a gasp. He was dead. Dead! It felt like Nibelheim all over again.

Tifa's hands fumbled at her belt pouch for the Cure materia. No, that wouldn't work on dead people; Wasn't there anything else that would help? Her mind suddenly slowed as her fingers brushed against a small silk-wrapped package. Phoenix Downs! She only had three and would he be able to last long enough for her to Cure him? She knew that she could not heal him with all the bullets still in his body.

He gave a ragged, painful gasp, his sky-blue eyes opening wide and unseeing as the power of the Phoenix Down was invoked. Tifa desperately cast Cure again and again, willing his body to heal from the inside out to expel the bullets within him before finishing off the healing process. She ran out of MP thrice and he died twice more before she managed to heal almost all his wounds. Casting Cure continuously was tiring and some incompletely healed wounds still leaked blood sluggishly. She was mildly surprised that he still had blood left to bleed. Reaching into her belt pouch for her last hi-potion, she carefully cradled his head and tried to dribble it into his mouth but trickled out of his slack mouth. Tifa gritted her teeth, tired. He needed to ingest the potion in order to have a chance of surviving and she didn't want to risk him dying _again_, not when she had nothing left to save him with. She drank a mouthful of the potion and then brought her mouth to his distressingly cool lips. She slowly released the potion bit by bit into his mouth, and gently pinched his nose shut, waiting for Zack to reflexively swallow and releasing his nose when he did so. She could feel his heart starting to beat more strongly and his breathing steady as the potion took effect. She repeated this and just as she released that mouthful, she felt a hand grip her wrist. She released her grip on Zack's nose and looked up into blurry, unfocused glowing eyes.

"Now, you've definitely got to be an angel."

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Tifa watched as Zack flipped himself upright. He held out his hands and looked at them, an incredulous grin breaking out on his face. "So I'm not dead! I'm not dead! Oh yeah!" To Tifa's amazement, he proceeded to do a few quick squats then went smoothly into a series of back flips and cartwheels, laughing at himself as he nearly stumbled on the uneven ground but always recovering smoothly as if he had intended to do it all along, amazingly agile for a recently resurrected man. He turned and looked at Tifa and his smile widened further. "You saved my life, man! Thank you!"

It was impossible not to return his smile. His joy in living was undeniable.

"Hey, you're Zack, right?" she queried tentatively.

"Yups, Zack Fair, ex-SOLDIER first class at your service!" He took a closer look at her and recognition dawned on his face. "Hey, I know you, you're Tifa!" Zack was stunned. Even though he knew that he had spent four years underground in Shinra Mansion, he hadn't really registered the passage of time in the outside world. Seeing Tifa here now, definitely grown up from the last time he had seen her, had suddenly made him realise that yes, four years had indeed passed. "You're alive, too! How did you come to be here?" He frowned suddenly, remembering, looking around. "Where's Cloud?"

Tifa's head snapped up. "You've seen Cloud?"

"You know him? Yeah, he's been with me for the past four years in Nibelheim. Somehow or other, that…"

"What?"

Zack threw a puzzled glance over at Tifa's interruption. "What's wrong?"

"You said, Cloud was with you for the past four years in Nibelheim. But he was with us in Midgar for the past year. Wait, this doesn't make sense." Tifa looked down in confusion and she noticed the empty materia slot in her glove. Her eyes widened. _Oh no, what is going on?_

"Anyways, I need to look for Cloud and head into Midgar."

"Me too. I need to look for Cloud and Aerith." Tifa muttered distractedly, getting to her feet and brushing at her clothes.

"What?"

It was Tifa's turn to look over at Zack's interruption. "Excuse me?"

Zack's startled blue eyes caught her own. "You know Aerith?"

Tifa blinked. "She sells flowers in the slums. Pretty girl, with brown hair and green eyes."

"And she's with you? Out here?" A slow grin formed over his face. "Well, what do you know. She overcame her fear of the sky, huh?"

Tifa felt shock hit her in between the eyes. Zack was the SOLDIER boyfriend Aerith had been referring to!

Confused, she looked out over the barren plains towards Midgar city. Something about the steel and smoke monstrosity was off. She frowned, trying to see what it was and when she finally registered what was wrong, she felt her heart constrict in her chest and everything whited out.

"…Tifa? Tifa? Are you all right?"

"_No, I'm not," _Tifa wanted to say but it couldn't get past the lump in her throat. She found herself on her knees, with concerned blue eyes looking into her own. She was leaning against Zack, whose arm around her shoulders was the only thing preventing her face from meeting the same stones who were so enthusiastically making themselves acquainted with her legs.

"Oh good, she opens her eyes. Next time, if you're gonna do that, give a guy some warning, won't you? What happened?"

Tifa looked out at Midgar City and whispered, "Sector 7 is still standing."

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed it.


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